Pest Control Strategies In Hospitals

Can you imagine the magnanimity of the law suit filed if the condition of a sick patient gets worse because of a failed pest control strategy of a hospital? Nothing can stop such negligence from making it to the headlines. Pest control companies in Singapore have adopted a strategy called Integrated Pest Management to address the menace caused by pests at health care facilities.

IPM is defined as the process of making decisions based on anticipation of pest entry and exercising containment protocols by combining different strategies in order to develop a long term solution.

Hospitals pose a high risk of entry

Pests gain easy access to hospitals from the surrounding environment. Every time a new patient enters the facility, a doorway for pests is also simultaneously opened. Pests can enter the hospital premises from the homes of employees who are facing an infestation. Hospital plumbing systems are over worked and largely ignored till the time they become a serious inconvenience. Pests like rodents and roaches travel through these poorly maintained plumbing lines and gain entry into wards and rooms.

Pest management in hospitals is more challenging

The rate of survival of pests within the walls of a health care facility is high. The building on the whole is warm, foot traffic is high, amounts of food spillage on the floor is high, poor sanitation, many pest-harboring spaces and excess organic waste generation. Structures like heating and plumbing pipes provide the pests with lateral movement while elevators offer vertical access.

Hospitals and health care facilities are open throughout the day and at night which makes implementation of pest control strategies difficult. The regular approach of hiring a pest control agency to fumigate the space is illogical because areas cannot be barricaded.

IPM- the solution

IPM is a unique strategy adopted to tackle pest control in health care facilities. This strategy disassociates areas of the hospital to comparable common regions and implements a similar course of action. For example, the kitchen region of a hospital resembles that of a restaurant and a similar strategy is effective for both. Other areas like corridors, lobbies, vending machines and locker rooms resemble spaces similar to bigger buildings.

Components of IPM

There are six basic components of IPM:

Education

Maintenance

Effective waste management

Structural repair

Limited use of pesticide

Mechanical and biological control

For more information on pest control for hospitals, nursing homes and health care facilities, get in touch with Pest Busters.